Scott W. Baker: Chaos out of Chaos

Another truckload

August 7, 2010

Rejections don’t seem to come one at a time. Three arrived this week: Abyss & Apex, IGMS, and ASIM (rejecting GB, TWHDotGMP, and TOL respectively). ASIM had TOL on hold for a while. One editor’s comments seemed to suggest he (or she) was excited to put the story in the magazine. Alas, this did not happen.

So I have three stories to send out. TOL has been rejected by a bunch of zines now, though a lot of them were prior to a major rewrite that seemed to be the excited editor’s favorite part, that being the use of multiple P.O.V.s during the story. For instance, Asimov’s rejected TOL back in ’03. For those keeping score, that’s around the time my flash piece “In or Out” appeared in NFG magazine as a 69er entry for no money (and no prize, but two good reviews), so the rejection predates my second sale. Maybe they’ll be interested in the rewrite. I know you’re not supposed to do that, but the story has changed so much. We’ll see.

Abyss & Apex sent a complementary form letter saying I was close but they just didn’t like it enough. I guess that’s a step above the flat rejection the story got from WotF (late speculative element).

And then there’s TWHDotGMP. The little story that could…er, can. At least I hope it can. Humor is so subjective, it’ll be a tough sell, but I believe in it. F&SF is the obvious next step. I should have sent it by now. I still get the jitters when sending a story I love to a market I love. I’ll get it in the mail Monday (too busy with a soccer coaching clinic this weekend).